blood drips drips drips into the sink

flows between my fingers


my forehead
throbbing

dripping sweat

hair plastered to my cheeks
and eyelids



then, in a streak of insanity

i settle deep into the floor
and pull the shower curtains off the rod,
over my head



falling deep
into the floor
past the tiles

past the pipes
past the old couple living in the apartment below mine

and they hold each other
and i watch


as he tries to put it in her

he can't.

they're both too squishy
and wrinkly

and tired

(he collapses on top,
rolls off of her

her ****
sagging towards her arms
******* with a diameter of my balled up fists
she sighs at him and gives a yellow toothed smile)




i want to feel something hard
and slippery
against my skin

i want to get ****** up

                                           i'll never forget
                                 that blood stained towel
                                      we placed under my hips

                                           to stop the blood
                                                           ­                    from staining the bedsheets.


                                              just like the one

balled up under my head
on the bathroom floor



eyes closed

i found a letter that i wrote to you
stuck in the case of my favorite cd.

signed

i love you,
          -michelle

when i saw those words
i thought about
                 standing in your driveway
shaking as you held me
               we were fixing the mistakes we'd made
And I thought about you pushing me
                                    in that shopping cart
hair in my face and laughter in my mouth

And I keep going back to the
time we slept on the floor
the snow falling heavy like blankets outside
                       your neck was a magnet for my lips
                       my fingers were glued in between yours
                       my eyes could not blink for looking at you



When i found the letter i wrote to you
signed

i love you,
          -michelle

at the bottom

I tore it into a thousand minuscule pieces

my tears inking my own ****** words
                into my fingertips

men write poems about ******* women
and vaginas and ****
and glorious juices and getting drunk after

and I can’t
because I have a ******
and ****
and I get uncomfortable if they want to drink after.

and if I wanna write about how I really like it
when he climbs on top of me
and puts his **** into my warm hot love-cave,

it’s just ****** poetry.
by a woman
and it doesn’t mean anything
but if I was a “****”
a “*****”
and I said “no”
and wrote a poem about “****”
it would make women love me as a feminist

but I’m not a feminist
I just like it when he ***** me
and his chest hair falls out
and covers my ******* and goes into my bellybutton


I don’t mind having to
lint roll
the sheets

The fact that I can't get you out of my head aside,
     I think You just wanted to be in love
          And all I wanted was the physical side,
               I just wanted a no strings attached benifriend.

Of course you complicate things with "love"

                                And of course I try to fool myself with ***...

I stubbornly waste time that could have been better spent
daydreaming
I quietly waste lines, fill them with ugly thoughts, should have
laid down the pen
Exhaling the last drag, sudden lightness, inevitably followed by
relentless heaviness
Eyes wide shut
I attempt to slow myself down, but my legs won’t allow it, my
hands plainly refuse it
Though my mind screams for it, fueled by caffeine & nicotine,
crashing & burning occasionally
Always resurrected by your memory, our memory
Faded & worn around the edges like boxes of old photographs,
collecting dust

I
want something.         I   w a n t
to see your smile,       your skin.  (To)   
love is not simple, but      Your beauty is.....****!
you make me crazy.        All I want is           you

Last week I sold a bunch of my memories

to help pay the rent.  It was either that or my car.

I gave them 146  rarely used memories, they gave me $40.88…

I thought it was a fair deal. I mean, I wasn’t using them…

A couple weeks later I was curious

to see how they were selling, so I walked to the second-hand shop

that had made the deal with me.  I saw an elderly woman looking

at my memories.  She picked one up, stared at it disapprovingly, then

tossed it casually back in the pile.  She did this a couple more times, then

walked away.  I waited until she had left, then walked up and picked

up the one she was looking at.  It was a memory of kissing and elbows.

Whispers and smiles.

I stood perplexed with the memory in my hands, wondering to myself what

brought about the look of disapproval.  To each their own, I suppose…

I hung around that day, trying to get into the heads of

those who were looking into mine…with little success.

There were laughs, tears, and the occasional snarky comment.  I watched a memory of driving

down an empty interstate with the windows down on an exquisite summer day sell

for 28 cents.  I saw a memory of climbing trees and rope swings leave with an old man

who wanted to remember youth.   A girl with dreadlocks in her twenties took a fuzzy memory

of less than legal implications.

I came by every day until they were all but gone, only a few stragglers here and there;  One of a hospital bed,

another of a meatloaf dinner in January.

I really don’t like meatloaf.

Does your hand still fit in mine,

Has our touch just lost its time,

The taste of your kiss lingers still,

The thought of sharing could make me ****,

I remember your scent stained on mine,

Still i lie and say im fine,

The imprint of your body taints my embrace,

The beautiful image of your innocent face,

The breaths you took as you gently slept,

The final night as i silently wept,

The kiss goodbye it still remains,

It will never feel the same.

.